The Complete Drive-In

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I took to sitting in the lawn chair for longer and longer periods, watching the movies. They were familiar and they made me comfortable. I liked the movies better than people. They were so damned dependable. The same ghosts were revived and slaughtered again and again. Leatherface became adorable. He seemed like an action kind of guy. Knew what he wanted and went after it. Didn’t sit around in a lawn chair feeling dizzy. He ate good, too.

  Bob leaned over the chair and put his face down close to mine. “You know,” he said, “you need to get you some focus. Quit looking at them movies, you’re starting to drift.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder and went away. I fell into the well of film for a time and came out when I heard voices, some laughter.

  “What did you think about that?” Willard’s voice. I was too weak to turn and look at him.

  “Great.” Randy’s voice. “I hit him right where you said, the way you showed me, right on the button. Did it kill him?”

  “Naw,” Willard said. “You just decked him. You get a guy on the chin like that, especially when he’s not expecting it, and most of the time he’ll go down.”

  The camaraderie in their voices was strange. Like Siamese twins rediscovering each other after a lengthy separation at birth. Maybe meeting at a dogfight, or something bloody.

  Randy had gone from quiet and shy to swaggering, and Willard had become content, like an empty cup that had been filled.

  And me, I was out in Bozo Land, flying about in a lawn chair, watching stars and planets and hamburgers fly by. Something about that bothered me, but I couldn’t nail down exactly what it was. I watched Leatherface for a time, then heard:

  “Let’s look for trouble,” Randy said.

  Willard laughed. “We are trouble.”

  “Maybe you boys are getting a mite out of hand.” It was Bob’s voice. Calm and in control. “You’re not eating good, none of us are, and it’s changing us. We’re not thinking right. We’ve got to—”

  “Mind your own business.” It was Willard’s voice, and it was a snarl. “You just take care of the basket case over there and leave us alone.”

  “Have it your way,” Bob said.

  I think I flew away in my lawn chair then. I don’t know how long I was gone, but when I came back to earth, my chair had been turned around so that I was facing the truck. I think Bob had done that, to keep me from watching the movies.

  Randy and Willard were on the hood of the truck. Willard was stripped down to his underwear. Randy had a gallon-sized popcorn tub on his head for a hat. He had poked holes in either side of it and run a piece of leather (probably from his belt) through it so he could fasten it under his chin. He was leaning over Willard, who was lying on his stomach, and he had Willard’s knife, and he was using it to cut designs in his back. He’d cut, then use a popcorn bag to sop up the blood. He’d put the bag in his mouth and suck on it while he used the black asphalt from the lot (he had it collected in a large Coke cup) to rub into the wounds he was making. From where I sat I could make out animal designs, words, a bandolier of bullets even. All of the tattoos had the slick look of crude oil by moonlight.

  Bob floated into view. “Ya’ll ought to quit that. End up getting an infection and ain’t a thing can be done about it here.”

  “I’ve told you to mind your own business,” Willard snapped.

  “Yeah,” Bob said, “and I said I’d mind it too. So carve away, Randy. It’s his skin. But don’t screw up the hood of my truck. Blood’ll rust it.”

  Willard, who had raised up on his elbows, relaxed again. Randy looked at Bob for a moment, then looked at me, smiled like a cannibal watching the pot, then bent to his work.

  And so it went.

  Movies and tattoos.

  I got so weak that Bob would have to help me to the concession for my meals. The Candy Girl had lost her smile and a lot of flesh, the sharp bones in her face were like tent poles pushing at old canvas, her hair was as listless as a dead horse’s tail. She didn’t put the candy in your hand now; she slapped it down on the counter and let you pick it up. She seldom stood anymore, preferred to roost in a chair behind the counter, just the top of her head showing. I quit saying hi. She didn’t miss it.

  The manager and the counter boy argued with patrons and with each other. Bob still asked the manager about the National Guard, but now the manager would cry. Finally, even Bob felt sorry for him and didn’t mention it again.

  When we got our food, Bob would help me back to the truck and feed me by hand. I couldn’t make my fingers work, couldn’t always keep the food down. It was too sweet. My teeth felt loose and my gums hurt.

  And the drive-in changed. People were not so good now. Nobody said “please” and “thank you” anymore. Patience was as hard to find as steak. The fight I’d seen with the welding-cap fella and the others had been just a preview. It was going a step beyond that. There was lots of yelling and fighting now. We heard gunfire frequently over in Lot B and from the west screen in Lot A. When Crier came by he would talk about murder. He had developed a sense of humor about it and was able to mix it in with his telling. It had gotten so nothing was real to me.

  I remember seeing the father of the little girl with the poodle come out of their car, butt naked, climb on the roof and hop around yelling, “I feel better now, I surely do, yes, sir.” Then he hopped down, ran across the lot, leaped onto the hood of a car, leaped off, repeated the process down the row until, in mid-leap from a Toyota, he was shot out of the air by a big fat guy brandishing a pump shotgun.

  The little girl had come out of the car to watch her father’s run, and when he was shot, she yelled, “Two points,” at the top of her lungs. I thought it was more like four, and something inside me told me I should be concerned about that kind of attitude, but the voice was small and tired.

  Later I saw the little girl wearing a ratty white cape held to her neck by a dog collar. The cape had a pink ribbon on it. The little girl was dragging the empty leash around the lot talking to it. Her mother, who looked like a death-camp survivor, was telling her, “Don’t tug on it.”

  All this scared Bob enough to get his shotgun down, and he kept it close by him for a while. Eventually he returned it to the rack in the truck, chained and locked it.

  I remember some of Crier’s visits. He came by often. He had found a hoe handle somewhere, and he used it for a walking stick. His hair was almost to his shoulders. He said there had been murders again.

  “There were these two brothers over in Lot B,” he said, “and they got into it over a popcorn kernel that rolled under their truck. The fastest brother dove under after it, and the slower brother cut the quick one’s throat, pried his mouth open, got the bloody kernel and ate it. Afterward, he cut his own throat.”

  “That ain’t good,” Bob said.

  “I’ll say. And the brothers’ bodies disappeared, and a short time thereafter there were some well-fed folks over there stepping pretty lively, and I reckon what happened with the brothers was what got this couple fired up to eat their baby raw.”

  Crier had emphasized ‘raw’ as if that were the crime. Smoked, barbecued or plain fried baby was probably all right with him, but raw?

  Personally, I couldn’t see a thing wrong with a raw baby. The idea of eating a baby had certainly not become acceptable to me, but I was beginning to think ahead to the time when it would, and I was quite certain I wouldn’t mind my baby raw. Oh, I’m like anyone else, I prefer my meat cooked, but if raw was the only way my baby would come, then raw it was.

  “They were out there eating this kid on the hood of their car,” Crier continued. “Each one had a leg and was going at it, and the motorcycle gang over there, Banditos, I think they call themselves, seen this and they got some upset, brothers.”

  “Cause the baby was raw?’” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Crier said. “The cycle guys have taken over in B Lot. They run the concession and keep the movies showing. They’ve appointed themselves the police officers for over
there, and I figure this side of the lot is next when they get around to it.

  “Anyway, they got this wrecker from somebody over there, took that couple of babyeaters and hung them one at a time from the wrecker’s wench. When that was done, they tore the couple’s car apart looking for food. Found some popcorn kernels and a chocolate almond under the back seat. The corker is someone stole what was left of the kid when the bikers weren’t looking, and one of their own men got up there on the hood and started licking the spot where the baby had been. The bikers had to take him over to the wrecker and hang him too. Afterward, the bodies of the executed disappeared faster than a horny man’s conscience. Oh, they found the clothes, but not the stiffs that went in them. They watched for charcoal smoke around and about from those who brought barbecue grills, but no smoke was detected. You might say Lot B’s law enforcement was thwarted.”

  “When you get some more cheerful news like that, Crier,” Bob said, “you be sure and come share it with us.”

  “I will,” Crier said, winking, and he moved on.

  “I think he’s a little too cheery about things,” Bob said. “Then again, maybe my sense of humor is on the blink.”

  Moment by moment I felt worse. Got so bad Bob had to decide when it was time for me to sleep. He’d come get me from my chair and guide me over to the truck and put me inside to lie down. Randy and Willard had gotten even chummier, and they didn’t have anything to do with us anymore. They took to sleeping under the truck.

  Willard had given up his underwear and now went around naked. Randy had tattooed Willard’s buttocks so that it looked as if black dahlias were blooming out of the crack of his ass. When he walked, the flower arrangement wiggled as if moved by the wind.

  Black blooms on a white-marble ass. I should have seen it as some kind of omen.

  The last time the concession was open, I almost didn’t make it. We were having one of those electrical storms, and it was the wildest ever; blue fuzz-bolts slamming across the sky (what served as our sky anyway), colliding, blowing patterns like neon quilt designs against the blackness.

  Bob got me out of my chair, said something to me that I don’t remember, and started leading me. All I recall was that there was lots of light from overhead and I was as crazy as a blind mouse in a paint shaker. I leaned against him and walked, tilted my head up to watch the raging electricity. I remembered my dreams about the B-string gods and thought if they were real, they were pretty worked up this time.

  Close as we were to the concession, when we got there, a line had formed, and a long one. There were a lot of naked people. It seemed to be the fashion. Not far up in line was Willard, naked, of course, his knife on a strip of cloth around his neck. His black tattoos were flat and dull in the bad light. He had Randy on his shoulders, and Randy was naked too, except for that silly popcorn container on his head.

  Since no one was bathing, it stunk there in line and it was hard to breathe. It made me feel worse than I already felt, and I hadn’t thought that possible. A moment later, when we actually entered the concession and the stink of bodies was intensified, mingled with body heat, it was even more intense. I kept wondering in an absent sort of way if the air in the drive-in was limited, if, like rats under glass, we could use it all up.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” Bob said.

  I was leaning against him, and he was holding me up. I turned and noticed for the first time that he had a light beard. There was a band of sweat between the brim and the crown of h is hat. All the toothpicks and feathers were gone. H is face was hard and there was something different about his eyes. I wondered idly what I looked like.

  The Candy Girl looked worse than ever, her movements were automatic. Her mouth hung open and there was chocolate drool running out of the corners and a spot of it was beaded between her teeth. She slapped the candy onto the counter with ill humor.

  The counter boy seemed to be having a hard time getting the hot dogs on the buns, and he kept squirting mustard on the outside of the bread. After dropping his third weenie, he threw the bread and mustard squirter down, walked toward the back. The manager yelled at him, “You’re fired. You hear? That’s it. Fired!”

  “That’s good,” said the counter boy. “I won’t have to quit. I was looking for a job when I found this one, so it’s no big deal.” He disappeared into the storage room.

  The manager was wild-eyed and his hair looked spiked from having gone greasy and uncombed for so long. His lips were purple, and there was something on his shirt that might have been dried vomit. He was mumbling under his breath about “freeloaders and sorry no-goods.”

  Willard was next in line with the manager, who was doling out the popcorn, and when he got his little sack handed to him, he said, “Hell, that ain’t half what you’re supposed to give.”

  “Think not?” the manager said.

  “No, it ain’t half.”

  “That right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Yeah,” Randy said.

  “Who asked you, you four-eyed nigger?”

  And then the chili hit the fan.

  Willard may have lost some pounds off his frame, but unlike me, he still had some stamina. His right hand flicked out and hit the manager in the nose, flicked out again, grabbed the manager by the throat. Willard applied both hands then, and the bag of popcorn went flying. A woman dropped to her knees and scuttled after it, chased the bag across the floor. A man stepped on her hand, hard, and she screamed. A kid grabbed for the bag, but his foot was ahead of his hand, and he accidentally kicked it, and it was like a hockey puck going into play. The line broke, folks went after the bag. It sailed past us, then sailed back our way. No one could quite lay a hand on it until the girl with the poodle cape nabbed it with “I got it, I got it,” but a man behind her slammed a fist into the back of her head and knocked her to the ground. “No you don’t,” he said triumphantly.

  The bag and the little girl both were now in play, getting kicked up and down the length of the aisle. The bag burst and pops of corn rolled every which way. People scuttled after them on their hands and knees, shoving what they could grab into their mouths. I wanted that corn too, but I was too weak to let go of Bob.

  Meanwhile, back to Willard, who was choking the manager.

  Willard had the guy pulled across the counter, and he quit choking him long enough to grab him by the back of the hair and slam his face into the glass display case. The manager’s face went through with a crack of glass and skull, and a shard of glass went through his throat, spraying the candy boxes and wrappers below with blood. The Candy Girl said, “Oh wow.”

  Randy, who was still miraculously on Willard’s shoulders, was yelling, “Four-eyed nigger, my ass. That’ll show him, that’ll show him.”

  The little girl with the poodle cape had become open season. She was surrounded by people who were kicking her, including her mother, who was screeching, “I told you not to jerk on that leash.”

  “Time to shake out of here,” Bob said. He grabbed me and steered me away from the line, headed me toward the door. A fist caught me in the side of the head, and it hurt, but I was already so dizzy and messed up, it didn’t make much difference.

  A woman with a nail file tried to stab Bob, and Bob kicked her kneecap with the toe of his boot. She went yipping and hopping along the wall, past the rows of horror-movie posters. She clutched at a strand of black-and-orange confetti strung across the window and pulled it down, along with some paper bats and skulls. Finally she tripped over a foot and fell down. The crowd that had been kicking the little girl moved in mass over to the woman and went at it. I could see the shape of the little girl beneath her dog cape. Her body was the color of the red ribbon in her hair, but the ribbon didn’t flow.

  Then I saw Willard. He had his knife out. He was spinning around and around with Randy on his shoulders, slashing out at anyone in reach. For a moment Randy’s eyes caught mine, held recognition, then went savage.

  Bob pulled me
out of there, outside into the storm.

  9

  Bob sat me on the tailgate of the truck and went away. He came back with the shotgun, pushed me inside, pulled up the tailgate and locked it. He sat me over by one of the camper windows, then hunkered down by me. From there we could see the concession and the lightning that was sparking across the sky. The truck rocked against the wind, paper bags and cups fluttered across the lot. It was the strongest wind yet.

  People were fleeing out of the concession, jamming in the door. There were fights out front of the place. Lots of biting and kicking.

  Bob moved over to the trap that held the spare tire and pulled it up. There was a cardboard box next to the spare. He took it out, opened it. It was full of homemade jerky wrapped in cellophane. I had forgotten about that. Something tried to click together in the back of my mind. but it wouldn’t. All I could do was say “But—”

  “Not right now,” Bob said. “Take this and eat it. You’re hypoglycemic, pal. Bad. You eat this. Chew it slowly and swallow the juice.”

  I took it and began to chew. It hurt my gums at first, but it was like new blood was being pumped into me. I wanted to gobble it, but Bob kept warning me to suck it, to make it last.

  “If Willard and Randy come back to the truck,” Bob said, “I’m not going to let them in. No matter what. Understand?”

  “Randy’s our friend.”

  “Not anymore. Eat.”

  I looked at him holding the shotgun. He looked like a young Clint Eastwood, only shorter, ready to step out of a spaghetti Western.

  “I’ve had the jerky all along,” Bob said. “I forgot about it at first—all that was happening and it out of sight. I brought it for you and Randy to split and take home, enough there so your folks could have some. I’ve been slipping in here and eating it from time to time.”